Interesting Social Media Statistics

Stephan Swanepeol was one of the featured speakers at the NAR Leadership Summit this week. He offered these recent statistics...

• Twitter grows with 1,382% from Feb. 08 to Feb. 09
• Facebook surpasses 250 million users.
• LinkedIn is adding a member at the rate of about one per second.
• 28 million Americans update their Blog every month
• 54% of Fortune 100 companies are active on Twitter.
• 14 million photos updated to Facebook every day.
• Wikipedia has more than 13 million articles in 260 languages.
• YouTube will serve over 75 billion video streams to 375 million unique visitors during this year.
• 60% of Fortune 100 companies use Twitter.
• Over 375 million Hotmail email accounts worldwide.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the 4th most populated place in the world.
• Formed in 2004, Flickr now hosts more than 3.6 billion user images.

Check out Stephan's blog.

Are You a Game Changer?

The "New and Improved" NAR keeps coming up with bigger and better ideas.

Yesterday at the 2009 Leadership Summit they announced the "Game Changers Challenge".

In 1906 professional football was on the edge of extinction. Nine player had died the previous season, and audiences were dwindling to nothing. League owners got together and decided they needed a game changer to guarantee their survival. They invented the forward pass.

In 1956 professional basketball was so boring that no one would go. Games were often decided by scores of 20-17...or less. The owners got together and decided they needed a game changer. They created the 24 second shot clock.

NAR CEO Dale Stinton described NAR as "the organization that is redefining real estate in America. That same organization is now asking its members to help us identify our game changers. With more than 1.2 mil members nationwide, we've got lots of ideas. Until now, we just didn't have the resources to move them along.

REALTOR® associations staff and REALTORS® are invited to submit big, bold ideas that will change the course of how REALTOR® associations work.

We are being asked for a radical -- but implementable -- idea for evaluation by our panel of experts introduced at the Leadership Summit before the competition closes Oct. 1.

The best idea(s) will be completely funded by NAR for development.

Those selected will be announced at the Leadership Luncheon in San Diego. The game changing results of these innovative development(s) will be revealed at NAR's Midyear Meetings in May 2010. This is an extraordinary opportunity for uniquely innovative models of association management to be developed. President-Elect Paulson has challenged the ACAR Board and Staff to come up with a game changer for submission. I invite you to send any ideas you might have...or...would you like to sit down and brainstorm some wild blue sky ideas with us?

What do you say? Are you a game changer?

Your Realtors Community Foundation

In case you haven't heard, your Realtors Community Foundation is off to a fantastic start with our new funding model. Thanks to so many of you who attended Agent2Agent yesterday, we raised an additional $1200 at the meeting! You all are helping us push forward to our annual goal of raising $100,000 a year for local housing focused charities.

If you're not familiar with your Foundation, please visit the ACAR website Foundation page at http://tinyurl.com/kwyc99 to learn more about our charities. Our Foundation has raised over $1.5 Million dollars since it's creation which makes us the largest non-corporate donor in our Valley! We want to encourage home ownership, housing and a make a positive impact in our community. Some of the charities we're proud to support this year include: Habitat for Humanity, City Lights, Meals on Wheels, Neighborhood Housing Services and so many more.

We need your help though to continue our giving. Many of our new Foundation supporters have generously agreed to donate anywhere from $5 to $50 a month, and you can too! We would like to see 500 of our members sign up to support the Foundation this year, and we'll keep you posted on our progress. Visit the website or email ACAR : jmclaughlin@adacounty-realtors.com for your sign up form and help us make a difference in our community!

Thank you again to everyone for your support!

Kit Fitzgerald
President
Realtors Community Foundation Board

Red Barn Real Estate
871-5288 (please call me if you have any questions)

Mountain Top Leadership

Lessons on leadership are a dime a dozen in this age of business enlightenment.

So, as I was finishing this year's installment of the Mt Borah climb, I couldn't help but find numerous messages on leadership resident in the rocky crags that make up the climb.

Lesson #1 - Have a good guide.
While we were climbing, there was a massive rescue operation for a missing hiker; gone for 3 days. We learned he'd asked a stranger if it was "OK to go that way?" Turns out it wasn't and he was lost. A good guide knows the way. A good guide shows compassion for the less experienced. A good guide doesn't show off how much he knows.

Lesson #2 - Know your team.
We each bring different strengths to the team. We also each need different supports. We met half of our climbing team the night before we started. Around the campfire we talked about our goals for the climb; what scared us the most; what we thought we could each bring to the effort. Knowing that little bit about someone who had been a stranger, connected us when we needed to exert the most effort.

Lesson #3 - Learn the terrain.
At the end of the climb I met a man who was going up solo the next day. He showed me a route map he'd retrieved from the web. He said: "So is that where I start?"...pointing at the wrong mountain. I said there are two or three places where there are choices to be made. Good choices will reward you. Bad choices can ruin the whole day. "Ask my guide. He knows the way."

Lesson #4 - Have the right tools/resources to do the job.
I loaned out a jacket and one of my climbing poles. It hurt me a little, but without them the others would have hurt much more. Understand what you're getting into before you jump.

Lesson #5 - Pacing is everything.
Go out too fast, and you're not going to make it. Go too slow, and you'll lose touch with the group. One of guys (its always a guy) charged out hard first thing. By the top of the first pitch, he was 30 minutes ahead of the group. He didn't finish.

Lesson #6 - The team will be stronger than the sum of its members.
I really didn't think one of our team would make the summit. He was making noises about turning around. No one discounted how he felt. No one said "Suck it up you can do it." The team just started climbing closer to him. Our guide never left his side. No one got louder cheers for summitting.

Lesson #7 - Things will get hard and scary. Someone may get hurt.
Life is not a video game. Things happen. Three of us were slightly bloodied. One sprained an ankle. One of my favorite quotes is: "Its not an adventure until something goes wrong." Understand the risks going in and the team will be able to adapt to what comes along.

Lesson #8 - When you reach the summit, celebrate!
The next challenge will come soon enough. Sing, pray, laugh, clap...just do something.

Lesson #9 - Coming back done requires diligence.
Reaching the summit is just half the job. Its not the finish. You don't finish until everyone is home safe. The toughest tasks are those that come when your energy is at its lowest.

Lesson #10 - One victory leads to another.
Many say that climbing Mt Borah is a spiritual moment. Many of us look to challenge to validate our lives. I remember the first time I summitted. I'd been through a tough string of personal events. I remember thinking: "I've just done the hardest thing I've ever tried." Carry that feeling forward. Now whenever I feel too tired; or too scared to climb the really tall ladder (a'la Paint the Town) I think to myself: "Heck its not like Chicken Out Ridge, and I did that."

Don't get me wrong. You don't have to climb a mountain to be a great leader. Choose something you're passionate about and I bet you'll find that these 10 simple lessons will enable you to do it better.

Here's a link to a video of this year's climb. Enjoy.

Is the Era of the "McMansion" Coming to an End?

For the first time in almost 15 years, the size of new homes built in the United States is shrinking.

New homes are now 7% smaller -- or the size of one average-sized room. To be precise, the median square footage of newly built homes fell to 2,065 square feet in the first three months of this year, compared with the same period last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
This caps off 2008, when home size fell every quarter, marking first year of declines since 1994. That could indicate that the romance between Americans and morbidly obese McMansions has finally cooled.

"A new ethic is arising right now that will become commonplace -- as commonplace as is recycling today, when just a few decades ago it was rarely, if ever, done," said Sarah Susanka, author of the book, "The Not So Big House."

"As more and more people build or remodel homes that satisfy in quality rather than quantity, there will be a huge shift in what we perceive as desirable." Read More>>

Free Stuff From NAR

The 'Right Tools, Right Now' initiative offers a wide range of tools. Here are just three of the many resources you can now download for FREE through NAR's 'Right Tools, Right Now' initiative.

Getting It Sold:

Get the staging conversation going with your seller and help them sell faster.

Order your copy for FREE

Relocation Reports:

Win relocation clients before they ever visit your area.

Order your copy for FREE

2009 Member Profile:

Find out what members like you are doing in this changing market.

Order your copy for FREE

Visit 'Right Tools, Right Now' homepage to see all FREE and AT-COST products and resources that are part of NAR's 'Right Tools, Right Now' initiative.

Listings are updated monthly, so check back often! These special product prices are exclusively available to REALTORS®. To access these and the hundreds of other downloadable products for FREE, member login is required at the REALTOR.org website.

Changes are coming to the ACAR Website!

You've been telling us... and we listened! Our website is undergoing an overhaul!

ACAR is redesigning its website to be more user friendly and more modern! We still have some placeholder text and are working behind the scenes to fill in content, but here is a sneak peak of what is coming!

We'll have a new URL that is easier to remember (and type!). We'll have menus with options that actually make sense! We'll have a live calendar and the latest news stories so that you'll know in a glance what is happening at ACAR.

Our expected launch date is quite soon. It was delayed a little when Alexander Daniel Kestler decided to make his entry into this world a little earlier than expected! (Congrats to Sarah Kestler, our Director of Communications!!).

Stay tuned for updates and information!

July Arrives - In The Nick of Time

We had our collective fingers crossed going into July. Would the trend of month-over-month sales continue? Would the small increase in median price hold? Would the huge number of pendings (a bunch of which were shorts or REO’s) actually close?

The answer is “Yes” with a couple of exceptions.

Sales are down 8% from last month, and up 5% from this same month last year. Between ’05 and ’09, the average change from June to July was a decrease of 11%. You could say then that: “July sales outperformed the average July.” This is two months in a row with an increase over last year's same month. This reverses 35 months of sales decreases.

At the same time pending sales are continuing to increase. Last month there were 38% more Pendings than the same month last year - now there are 51% more pendings. Nearly all is on the Resale side, not new construction; but NC is now about even with last year.

Short Sales are down slightly to 14% of the total sales. REO sales are up to 19%; down from the record high of 34% in February ’09.. That makes 33% of the sales "distressed" this month. This a reduction of 11% from our high of 48% in Feb.

Median price is down 1% from last month to $175,000; and down 17% from this month last year. New Construction Median fell 11% just from last month. Down 23% from this same month last year. Resale Median is up 2% this month over last and down 15% from a year ago.

Our most active price category for 2009 YTD is $120,000 to $159,999; with 901 units sold. Second is $160,000 to $199,999 with 682 units.

For the 13th month in a row, inventory levels are below one year ago. And this is the 6th month that inventory is below the prior two years at this point! Inventory is down 3% from last month, and 18% lower than last year at this time.

New Construction is down 4% from last month’s 792. Last year at this time there were 1129 new homes for sale. New Construction inventory has dropped for 28 of the last 34 months.

Resale inventory is 3366 down from 3447 last month. Last year at this time there were 3920 resale homes for sale. July 2008 was the all time record high at 3920.

On July 31 we had 7.8 months of inventory available. January 2009 set the all time new record high at 16.7 months of inventory.

The bottom line is this…We continue to see incremental improvements as we put the first half of ’09 behind us.

First time home buyers has been what has turned our market. Perhaps now the sellers of the $120,000 to $199,999 homes will be free to take advantage of the incredible “trade up” opportunities.

One note on short sale practices…We continue to hear about more and more “creative” practices. At this point, the best advice we can give is to make sure you and your broker are on the same page with the disclosures that are being made; when and how. At the Broker’s Luncheon this week we’ll be talking with the Immediate Past President of the Idaho Mortgage Brokers Association about this and other changes effecting the lending landscape. There’s still time to register. JMclaughlin@AdaCounty-Realtors.com

Special thanks to Jere Webb for his research and insight.

NPR Explains How Mortgage Backed Securities Are Stalling Our Recovery

Many of you have heard me sign the praises of NPR.

Last night I had a chance to hear the best report on why its so hard for so many homeowners to get their home mortage loan modified.

Earlier this week the Obama administration's foreclosure prevention program got its first report card.
Making Home Affordable, the program is called. And the grades were decidedly mixed. A lot of banks have been slow to help homeowners manage their monthly payments. There are a lot of reasons why that's so. But a big one brings us back to what got the economy into this mess in the first place. Mortgage-backed securities. Karen Weise from the investigative newsroom ProPublica has the story.

CNN Money says 'If you want a repo'd house you'd better hurry."

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- You've heard of speed dating? It's got nothin' on foreclosure buying these days. In many places, anyone who wants to buy a foreclosure better act fast, or they're going to come away with bupkus.

REOs, the industry term for homes repossessed by lenders and put back on the market, are often selling in a day -- sometimes in less.

"We're seeing REOs go very quickly. Offers come in immediately after the listing comes on the market, within 24 hours," said Brad Geisen, founder of Foreclosure.com. Some homes have been put into contract in less than 90 minutes.

In Stockton, Calif., foreclosure ground zero, the market has changed radically. Last summer, Cesar Dias became famous for founding the "foreclosure tour," in which he packed potential buyers on a bus and ferried them around to some of the thousands of distressed properties.
Foreclosures: How bad is your city?

Today, the foreclosure tour in Stockton is history. There are too few REOs.

"For every listing that comes out, we have 10 buyers," said Dias, an agent with Approved Real Estate Group. "We had a lot of inventory last summer. Now we're down to 1,500 listings -- from more than 5,000."

San Diego buyers face the same trend. "Agents have one or two REO listings now, compared with 15 or 20 a year ago," said realtor Adrianna Delgado of the Delgado Group.

Read entire story

Appreciation Night a Success

What a great way to celebrate summer! It was a relaxing evening at a local park with no expectations, no schedules, and no fuss.

With a hamburger in one hand and a Coke in another, families and colleagues spent a few hours catching up and simply enjoying life.

As this crazy and tumultuous year progresses, it is important to remember the simple things in life and express your gratitude for the individuals who have helped you along the way.

ACAR wishes to thank all of the REALTORS® and Affiliates who have worked tirelessly to see that deserving people find houses that they can now call home.

As we look toward the future with expectant eyes, we know our hard work and perserverance will pay off. We'll make it through these challenging times, and we will do so together.

Here's to a successful and rewarding future!

For more pictures from the event, visit us here.